Journey to Embarkation

Daejeon, South Korea

September 21, 2010; revised May, 2014

Midnight rains have stopped for now

and veils of mist envelop trees. Soft

textures of darkness hover beyond

        the pale reach of streetlight

that bathes the last bus stop

                out of Daejeon.

Late night truths come veiled in signs.

A white dog emerges from shadow,

makes his mark then passes on

        and leaves me emptied

on the path of pilgrims now

                at peace with night.

Though dawn lies distant, far beyond

my closed horizons bright midmorning

showers light, I must have faith  

        for here I am, wayfaring

stranger, watching forms

                in drifts of fog.

Too soon the rains will return

and the lullaby tap of wipers

will sooth intermittent sleep

        through the last

empty hours of night

                in a far country,

And my bus will plow steady

to causeway’s end

beyond the mudflats

        where sea and sky

merge, gray and indistinct

                at Incheon.

My brothers, we are bodies

becoming spirit, forever drifting 

mid-transit. We are always

        awaiting embarkation.

We have always already

                arrived.

In the Aftermath of an Engineering Binge

Athens, Georgia

June 6, 2012

My muse flipped me off last week

after too many midnights, head caught

in code, tweaking time step solvers

on an engineering binge.

She said you left that years ago

for herons, shoals, and metered lines

and who but one like you might find

your mind entranced in strings of code?

I said it’s just a short-time thing

      an algorithm coding fling

      my simulation fantasy

to make a number cruncher sing.

Just fine she said, half out the door

      composing raunchy metaphor

it’s art, I argued, and what’s more

my colleagues all swear, and you know’em

my programs resemble a poem:

      they tend to abort

      a syllable sort

ambiguous functions the norm.

As I said, my muse

      flipped me off last week.

Took up with a wild-eyed type,

      my evil twin Sal

who drives a souped-up symbol –

      nineteen sixty seven

      or eight mustang

which has nothing on my hybrid

when it comes to efficiency.

She was last seen riding shotgun

      top down, streaming

      raucous lines, the kind

she knows I never use. To choose

      the wild, a touch

      obtuse and bad

career move for a muse

‘cause "Reptile Brain" just cannot write.

      So I propose

      a compromise

pour tu, cher muse, inverse haiku:

     Wake up soon and savor dawn

                    engineer by day             

            after sunset, yield to art.

So ready now to channel

      phrases, randy words  

      stoked in the queue

long overdue, when can we start?

Photography by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia